


Burning

by CranberryBat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Blindness, Eventual Happy Ending, Friendship, Gen, Humor (hopefully), Hunk and Pidge just want everyone to be ok, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Issues, Issues up the Wazoo, Lance is just a walking angst bomb, Shiro is team mom, Team Bonding, Team Feels, Whump, and everyone knows it, as is Keith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-07-29 17:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7692883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CranberryBat/pseuds/CranberryBat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of their escape from Zarkon had serious repercussions on each member of the team, but at least they were still alive – still together. Lance, however…well, let’s just say Lance didn’t get by totally unscathed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Lance awoke, everything was pain and darkness and burning.  

He tried to breathe, but what seemed to be a smoldering hand had clamped down on his chest and refused to let any air inside. It was too late, however, because now his damaged lungs demanded oxygen, and hacking coughs were ripped mercilessly from him. Each one felt like someone was dragging barbed wire up his esophagus.

The sensation of his skin was unbearable. He was slowing being consumed by the heat from the inside out and the outside in, left here alone to smolder in a fiery hell. The taste of ash and blood was in his mouth.

Lance had been caught in an explosion before, but this…

This was what burning alive felt like.

Lance turned onto his side, hoping it would help relieve some of the pressure building in his body. Curling in on himself, his fingernails dug into the skin on his upper arms as his body shook in uncontrollable spasms. He coughed and coughed for what seemed like an eternity, and was only able to take a complete breath once he felt sure he had choked out all his insides.

The burning wouldn’t stop.

 “…ello?” he gasped, only for his stinging throat to retaliate in another bout of coughing. _Ok, breathe now, try pitifully calling for help later._

Lance pushed away all other thoughts inside his head and just focused on the in and out of air inside his smoldering lungs. He would not cough again, he _wouldn’t_.   

After a few unsteady breaths, Lance released a choked laugh. _I guess that one meditation class I took at the training academy wasn’t totally useless after all,_ he thought. _Who knew?_

Bracing himself, he rolled his head upward and tried to open his eyes, only to see….nothing.

There was nothing. Not a single thing.

The world – whichever one he happened to be on – was pitch black.

He blinked, squinted, then blinked again. Nothing changed.

Lance shut his eyes tight and moaned. “N-no, no no no…” _This is just a dream, it has to be. This is only a dream. When you open your eyes again, everything will be back to normal. You’ll be back in your bed at the castle, where giant wormholes aren’t trying to eat you alive, and you’re safe and everyone’s safe and …._ But opening his eyes didn’t change the fact that he was lying on the hard surface of some unknown planet, probably ten-quadrilion lightyears from where he should be. Opening his eyes didn’t instantly brighten the darkness he was surrounded by. Opening his eyes didn’t stop the incessant burning under his skin and in his bones.

Fumbling around with his free hand, Lance attempted to push himself off the rocky ground, only to intently fall back when his skin stretched in ways that it should never stretch and a consuming agony shot its way from his shoulder to the rest of his body. He gagged; the pain was so bad he thought he might pass out.

God, he hoped he would pass out.

 _Blue! he_  cried out with his thoughts. _I-I need you, buddy….please, just come help me!_

But there was no answer. He was surrounded by a void, both before his eyes and in his mind.

Lance didn’t understand. His lion had never ignored him before. Even when they were planets apart, when Lance truly needed him, the lion would always come. Not feeling the giant robot’s constant presence surrounding him was like missing some part of himself that he never knew _could_ go missing. It was like the pain of losing a hand, though Lance might have preferred that to the emptiness he was now experiencing inside his head.

After what seemed like forever, the throbbing in his shoulder died down a bit, enough that Lance was able to roll again onto his back. He took several deep breaths, trying to understand what was happening. He remembered charging through the wormhole after their rescue of Allura – and man, what a great feeling that had been! They had faced the front of Zarkon’s forces and lived. They had even stood up to Zarkon himself! Well, at least Keith had, that glory-stealing jerkass.

But something had gone wrong. He remembered the wormhole turning from a healthy blue into something red and foul. He remembered being pulled in one direction, hearing everyone shout uselessly over their comms. It had felt like…well, getting pulled through a wormhole. Except maybe without the whole “squishing you into a singularity” thing, though given how Lance felt at the moment, it wouldn’t have surprised him.

After that, his memories were fuzzy and disjointed. There had been alarms blazing all around him. They were inside the console – inside his _head_. Something was very, very wrong. His lion wasn’t responding. He couldn’t _do_ anything! _Nothing!_ He couldn’t…

And then he was falling….

Lance gasped, coming out of the memory with a jolt and a sick lurch of his stomach. He turned over and threw up, emptying everything out of him until there was nothing left inside but bile and maybe guts, if he were lucky.

_Great, now I’ve upgraded from coughing to full out blowing grits. Congrats to me._

When he didn’t feel like his stomach was fighting to climb its way out of his throat, Lance let out a long breath, and found himself laughing.

He laughed at the fact that he was on some unknown planet in some far-off corner of the universe, without his friends and without his lion. Laughed at the fact that he was too injured to move, and now, apparently, couldn’t even see. Laughed at the fact that he and his friends had dared to think they could fight Zarkon head on, and all be ok.

They weren’t ok. _He_ wasn’t ok. Nothing would ever be ok again.                     

And so he lay there, waiting for either a daring rescue by his fellow paladins….or death, either by finally succumbing to his injuries or being found and put out of his misery by the Galra Empire.

He just prayed that one or the other would happen soon.

* * *

 

“Well, I think that’s about everything,” Coran said, bringing his head out from under the main operations panel and dusting his hands triumphantly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the castle in better condition, which is surprising, considering we’ve just been flung through an unstable wormhole of considerable…”  

Seeing the solemn expression on the Princess’s face, Coran trailed off. Allura had said very little once they had determined that both of them were, miraculously, still alive. She looked guilty and crestfallen, staring at the floor as if she could see all the faces that had once been reflected on its shiny surface.  

“Don’t worry Princess,” he said, trying to sound comforting. He was never good at this sort of thing. “They’re alright, I know they are. Just because you can’t sense the lions doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. We just have to wait for their distress signals to reach us. We’ll find them. Well…the rest of them, I mean.”

Coran glanced over at Shiro, who was sitting a little ways away in the observatory lobby. He had been the closest and the easiest to find of the five paladins, however he seemed to be in the same low-spirited mood as Allura, if a tad bit more distracted.

“Shiro?” Coran said, concerned.

Shiro looked up from where he had been staring attentively at his robotic hand. “Um, what? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

 “Are you alright?”

Shiro blinked. “Yeah…sure. I’m fine.”

His expression softening, Coran walked over to the eldest paladin and placed a comforting hand upon his shoulder. “Best not to get yourself down too much, my boy. We’ll locate the others, don’t you worry!”

Shiro gave the older man a small smile. “Yeah, I know we will. I trust Allura to find them.”

Satisfied that his job was done, Coran marched away to keep working on….well, whatever Coran normally worked on, however he didn’t catch the smile as it slowly faded from Shiro’s lips. The black paladin looked back down at his hand.

“It’s not finding them that I’m worried about,” he said in a low voice, just as a few sparks of red power flowed over his hand, which gave a violent shudder. He closed it into a fist.

“I wonder what will be left of them when we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so here starts my super-happy-fun-time adventure with Lance and all of his glory at the center. Hopefully it won’t be too angsty, though I will warn you I am not a big fan of fluff, so you probably won’t be seeing very much of that. My goal for this fic is to explore the relationships between the characters and their lions, for both team-building and character-building purposes.
> 
> Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

Lance must have passed out for a while, because when he came back to himself, there was something poking at his head.

It had to have been an animal, as the thing gave a terrified squeak when he groaned and seemed to scramble away. Lance rolled his head and blinked, trying to spot whatever had been investigating him, but there was nothing to look at.

Ah yes, how could he have forgotten?

He tried to move his right arm and groaned as every fiber of his being complained. He must have been lying on that rock for a long time, and now he was dead-stiff on top of everything else. His lips were dry and cracked, and he could still taste the iron tang of blood in his mouth. Everything from the last…however long he had been here, was a complete blur of pained-delusions and scattered memories. Heck, he still felt like he was in a delusion, but at least the fire all over his skin had died down a bit, enough that he could string two thoughts together.

The air was beginning to cool, which Lance assumed meant night – however that worked on this planet – was approaching. He moved has right arm slowly across the ground, looking for anything that might help him. About three feet away there was a steep, upward incline of stone that felt smooth enough to lean against. Taking a deep breathe, Lance prepared himself for the pain that was bound to show up as soon as he tried to move toward the incline. He bent his knees and pushed, but was forced to stop a moment later when the expected pulse of agony blossomed from his shoulder and threatened to overwhelm him.

He groaned. _Come on, man. You’re the Blue Paladin, remember? This….is nothing…_

Lance was sweating and breathing raggedly by the time he managed to pull himself up and lean back along the rock. His entire body was throbbing, and for a while the only thing he could do was lay his head back and try not to faint. It felt like he was dying all over again.

How long could he keep going like this? How long would it take for his friends to find him, and would he be able to last that long? Shouldn’t they have seen a distress signal by now? He needed to contact the castle somehow, however that required approximately one functioning helmet or robot lion, both of which he seemed to be lacking at the moment.

Lance pulled his knees up as far as they could go and leaned his forehead against them. A thousand different thoughts ran through his head at once. Where were his friends? Did they not care about him, or had they found someone to replace him? Were they all dead? He wrapped his right arm around his knees, hugging himself as tight as he could. The other arm lay limply at his side.

After everything he had gone through as the Blue Paladin, after all the pain he was in, after being _blinded_ , the only thing Lance could think about was how completely and utterly alone he felt. He missed his mom, his dad, his sisters, his little baby brother…. There was nothing and no one to keep him safe from the consuming darkness.

A few tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over. It burned, but he didn’t care.

_I’m….all alone._

* * *

 

Keith trudged through the forest with his bayard out, searching. The fog all around him was so thick he felt like his sword could cut right through it, and the dense, brackish water went up to his knees, slowing his steps.

He knew he had seen a group of _them_ running into this forest. The huge, water-grown trees and the impenetrable fog would be a perfect place for them to hide, but he would find them soon enough. He would find them and destroy them. 

That is, if they didn’t find him first.

Keith paused, feeling suddenly very paranoid. Why had he run into the forest searching for the androids, when all he had to do was blast them from the safety of his lion? There were so many places they could be hiding, waiting, watching him through the sights of their laser-guns, ready to shoot him down any second- 

Something moved behind Keith, and he flipped around. A dark figure was approaching through the fog, but it didn’t seem to have spotted him yet. He quickly ducked behind a nearby tree.

They wouldn’t catch him, not like they had caught Shiro. Not like they had caught Allura.

Anger building inside him, Keith waited until he heard the figure’s sloshing footsteps closing in. Then, when it was near enough for him to strike, he let lose a ferocious yell and jumped, swinging his sword as hard as he could.

“Ieeyyyyy!!!”

Confused, Keith’s swing went wild and he stumbled. What had been behind the tree was defiantly _not_ a Galran robot, but more like a heavy-set, yellow-clad paladin.

A paladin that was now about three meters up, clinging to the lowest branch of a nearby tree.

“Hunk?” Keith asked in amazement.

“Please don’t eat me!” Hunk cried, eyes shut tight. “I promise, I taste terrible! Probably like alien food goo, which I know you wouldn’t like! I mean, it took me a whole day to get used to it, and I’m sure that you wouldn’t like it your first…time…”

Hunk stopped and cracked open an eye. “Keith?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Keith said.

Hunk’s face broke into a relieved smile. “Hoo, man! I thought you were a giant alien swamp-monster who was going to eat me!”

“Yeah, I had guessed that.”

Hunk narrowed his eyes. “Wait, weren’t you just trying to kill me?”

“Yeah, um…” Keith rubbed the back of his head guiltily, letting his bayard disappear. “Sorry about that. But…how did you get there?”

“I saw your lion and came looking for you. Guess we landed on the same planet. Funny, right?”

“No, I mean, how did you get _there_?” He pointed to the tree Hunk was clinging to.

The yellow paladin look down, seeming to realize for the first time where he was. “You know, I have no id-”

At that moment, the branch Hunk was on suddenly cracked. “Wa oh,” was all that he could say before it went crashing down into the water below.

 Keith ran over to him. “Are you ok?”

Groaning, Hunk sat up and spit a murky stream of water from his mouth. “You know, I think this water tastes worse than that 'nectar of the gods' stuff we got from the Arusians.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”  

Keith helped Hunk to his feet, who was dripping wet and covered in swamp-moss. “Eeck!” Hunk said, pulling a string of slime from his hair. “You don’t think there’s leeches in this water, do you?” he asked nervously.

He shrugged. “Who knows?”

Hunk’s stomach gave a large growl, and he sniffed at the moss. “Man, I’m so hungry right now that even this stuff is starting to look good.”  

“Please don’t eat that. You throwing up in the cockpit is bad enough.”

Sighing sadly, Hunk dropped the slime back into the water. “Hey,” he said, looking at Keith, “What were you doing in this forest anyway? Why’d you leave your lion?”

Keith stiffened, remembering why he was here. He glanced around, but he still couldn’t see much through the fog. “I saw some Galran androids run in here, so I chased after them.”

“Really? I flew around the entire planet, but I didn’t see any ships or anything. You sure it was Galra?”

“Yeah, I…” Keith paused. He _had_ seen them, hadn’t he? He had been so sure it was them, but now.... he didn’t know. He had been so _angry_ , he just….

“Yo, Keith. You alright?” Hunk was waving a hand in front of his face.

Keith blinked. “Fine. Let’s just…get back to our lions. See if we can contact the castle now.”

“Yeah, great idea!” Hunk spun around and began marching, only to stop two steps later and turn back to Keith. “Umm…which direction are they, again?”

Keith turned to his left, but no, that couldn’t have been the right way; he had just come from the opposite direction. However, when he turned around, there were the exact same trees.

“Um….”

“You don’t know, do you?”

Keith shook his head.

“Great, now we're starving _and_ lost,” Hunk said, looking like the end of the world was upon him.

“Maybe we could try our helmets?” Keith suggested. He took his off and handed it to the other paladin, who turned it over. “I haven’t been able to get it to turn on, not sure why though. Maybe you can look at it.”

Hunk hummed. “Yeah, I can’t get mine to turn on either. Gee, I sure wish Pidge was here right about now; she's a lot better at this than I am. Let me just try….” He popped open a back compartment of the helmet, but yelped suddenly and dropped it when a spark of red energy flowed across the surface. 

“What was that?!”

“Don’t know,” Keith said suspiciously. He walked cautiously over to the place it had fallen and picked it up. “Whatever that was, it seems to be fine now.” He turned the helmet upside down, banging it a few times to get all the excess water out.

He must have done something right, because the hologram screen on the front of the helmet flickered to life, showing the face of a very worried Princess.

“Paladins!”

“Yeah!” Hunk said, grinning triumphantly and running over. “You fixed it, dude. Good job!”

“Guess so,” he said, smiling.

“We’ve been trying for ages to get in contact with you!” Allura said. “Are you alright? Who else is with you?”

“It’s just me and Hunk,” Keith told her. “We’re on some sort of swamp-planet. None of our communicators have been working until now. It was like the signal was gone.”

“Not to mention we’re really hungry,” Hunk put in.

The Princess frowned. “Yes, I haven’t been able to sense any of the lions since our separation. However, now that your helmet is back online, we can track you.”

Another face popped into view just as Allura finished talking, filling up most of the screen. “Paladins, you’re alive!” exclaimed Coran. He sniffed, looking like he was about to cry. “I was so worried!”

“Yes, thank you,” said Allura, pushing the older man out of the way. “We’ll be sending someone to get you, just stay where you are in case we lose the signal again.”

“Wait,” said Keith. “What about everyone else? Are they safe?”

At that, Allura’s face became very drawn. “We have Shiro with us, but the whereabouts of Pidge and Lance are still unkown.”

Keith swallowed. “Do you…think they’re ok?”

Allura smiled at him, but the expression didn’t seem to reach her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re doing just fine. Hang on, and we’ll have the both of you off that planet in just a few ticks.” With that, the comm switched off.

Walking over to a tree root sticking up from the water, Hunk sat down with a huff. “I hope she’s right. Coran’s ancient Paladin lunch is starting to look pretty good right about now.”

Keith looked down to the silent helmet. _Don’t worry,_ Allura had said. Pidge, he wasn’t worried about. She was resourceful and could worm herself out of any situation. But Lance….

“Let’s just hope we find them soon,” he muttered.   


	3. Chapter 3

Lance was shocked from his stupor when he heard a rustling noise.

It sounded like something pushing its way through a bush a little ways to his left, which surprised him. Because there was very little wind on this planet, he had no idea plants even existed here. Heart hammering in his chest, he listened.

There it was again, closer this time, maybe only a few meters away.

Lance felt a jolt in his stomach. At first he had been relieved – maybe whatever it was would be willing to help him – but the feeling quickly died when he remembered that not every lifeform in the galaxy was friendly. Seeing as there had been a lot of instances when an alien was trying to eat his face or shoot his insides outside, he figured he should know better by now.

Swallowing, Lance held his breath and waited.

….

“Ima?”

He started. Whatever the thing was, it sounded small and had a very high voice. Was the alien…asking him a question?

“Ima?” it repeated.

“Ima….what?” he croaked, the soreness of his throat only allowing him to speak above a whisper.

He heard it shuffle a few steps closer. “Ima what?” it asked.

 _Ok, now the thing is just being confusing._ “Can you talk? Do you…understand what I’m saying?”

Lance felt a tiny hand resting on his leg. He froze, assuming the hand belonged to the alien and not wanting to scare it away. This must have been the creature that was poking him in the head a little while ago.   

“What I’m saying,” it said as it began climbing up the burned fabric of his uniform’s pants. The alien was light and must have been about the size of a cat, but the way it gracefully swooped up his leg and sat on his knee gave Lance the impression of a monkey.

“Ok, so you’re a copycat.”

“Copycat,” it mimicked, bobbing weirdly on its post.

Slowly, Lance lifted his hand to the small alien, palm upward. “I don’t have any food, if that’s what you want.”

The creature grabbed his outstretched hand and sniffed it before muttering, “Any food _._ ” Seeing that the human’s hand didn’t have what he wanted, however, the monkey-like animal began walking and climbing all over him, sniffing.

“Sorry,” Lance said, snorting in amusement. The movement hurt his ribs. “Don’t have anything.”

“Anything?” it asked. When he shook his head, it let out a breath that sounded an awful lot like a sigh and sat on his right shoulder – the one that wasn’t broken – and started rubbing up against his face.

“Wow, you really are like a cat,” Lance said hoarsely. He pulled his arm up, and it instantly began rubbing against his palm, encouraging him to pet it. The alien had soft, silky fur and ears that were probably twice the size of a normal cat’s. Its limbs were also very long, and they never seemed to stop moving. Lance was also surprised that the alien seemed to have two tails.

“You’re kinda cute,” he said, smiling tiredly. “I guess I’ll call you Copycat, then.”

“Cat, cat, cat,” it sang happily as Lance scratched it behind its ears.

Suddenly, Lance’s throat began to itch terribly and he coughed, groaning as the movement jarred his shoulder and ribs. Copycat squeaked and jumped off his shoulder, landing a few feet away.

“Sorry,” Lance said hoarsely. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Scare you,” it scoffed angrily at him, but it only took a moment for Copycat to grudgingly walk back over and climb once again to his knee.

“I wonder…”Lance said, thinking. “Would you be able to…find my helmet for me?”

“Helmet?”

“It goes over my head, like this.” He made a motion as if he were forming an invisible force-field around his cranium. “It’s also blue, like my uniform.” He wasn’t sure what color remained visible on his charred outfit, but he pointed to it nonetheless.

 _What am I doing?_ Lance asked himself. _I’m talking to a freaking_ cat-monkey _, for crow’s sake_.

However, the little alien seemed to be going along with it. “Blue Helmet,” Copycat said confidently. “Blue Helmet, Blue-”

It froze, suddenly, its grip tightening on his pants.   

“Copycat….?” Lance asked cautiously. A few heartbeats passed, and still it stood frozen in its place. He didn’t think the little alien could sit so motionless.

And then, with a quiet rustle of the bushes, it was gone. The sound of the little animal’s departure was so quiet, it might as well have been the wind.

“Copycat!” Lance tried to call, but his throat wouldn’t allow him much more than a choking cough.

He sighed – his head falling back onto his knees as he allowed the bone-deep misery to once again set in. _I guess… having a friend in this place was a little too good to be true._

Then he heard the sound. It was something that he hadn’t listened to in a long time, but that didn’t stop the freezing wave of terror from overtaking his mind and body. Now he knew why Copycat had fled.

It was the howling of wolves.

Lance had heard the sound plenty of times in movies and stuff back on earth, sure, but he had never truly understood how scary it was until he was sitting in unfamiliar terrain, incapacitated, and alone. He felt like a terrified rabbit, frozen in place and praying that they would not find him. 

But from the sound of them, however, Lance had a feeling that they had done just that.

It took almost no time for them to reach him. There were two of them, and they were much, much bigger then the wolves on earth. Lance curled up into a little ball, shaking. They circled him with heavy footsteps and heavy breathing, however, instead of attacking like he had expected, the wolf-like creatures drew breath and howled once again.

Following the beasts were more footsteps, and a sharp whistle sounded from the direction they had appeared from. Voices, speaking in a deep, guttural language that Lance didn’t understand, called out to the wolves, and they backed away.

More voices spoke up. Maybe they were talking to him, maybe each other – even if he _could_ understand what they were saying, Lance was too terrified to speak. His stomach was knotted so hard he felt as if he might throw up again. 

One of the aliens kicked at his leg and shouted something unintelligible. They wanted him to stand up.

“ _N-n-no_ …..” he moaned, trying to curl into a tighter ball. Then one of them grabbed his bad arm and pulled, and Lance’s world turned red.

The feeling was indescribable. It was pain so shocking and consuming that, for a moment, Lance forgot everything except for what he felt in that moment.

When he came back to himself, the native aliens were yelling and jerking at him to stand. But he couldn’t stand – his throat was bloody and his skin was on fire and his eyes burned and his shoulder was cutting into him and _killing_ him and he had to be dying….

The last thing he remembered was being thrown over a large, hard shoulder. Then the agony, and everything else, faded away.

* * *

 

 

“Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re doing just fine. Hang on, and we’ll have the both of you off that planet in just a few ticks.”

Turning off the program, Princess Allura sighed wearily and rubbed her eyes. This whole endeavor had been doomed to disaster from the moment the paladins had attempted to rescue her. They had been fools, thinking that everything would turn out alright.

But no, Allura was being too hard on everyone. Things _had_ turned out a lot better than they could have gone, which was saying a lot. She could think of many, many different scenarios that ended in them losing the battle against Zarkon forever – some ended with them captured, some ended with them killed, and some ended in something even worse.

Yes, they were very lucky. Now all they had to do was find the missing paladins unscathed and figure out what was wrong with the communication systems inside the lions, and they would all be worse for wear, but alright.

Just then, Allura heard the sound of someone running up the hall behind her. She turned to see Shiro, sweating and panting, come to a stop before her. It looked like he had just been in the training room.

“Coran said you had gotten word from the others,” he said without pausing to catch his breath. His face was concerned and hopeful all at once. “Are they alright? What’s happened?”

“We did,” she said. “Keith and Hunk have managed to contact us, and they seem to be ok. We’re tracking their location now. Are you ready to retrieve them?”

“Of course,” he said, nodding in his noble, Shiro-like way. Then he paused. “What about the other two? Have we heard anything from them?”

Allura shook her head. “I’m afraid not. But don’t worry, Shiro. We won’t stop looking, however for right now we need to focus on the ones we _can_ rescue.”

“Yes, you’re right,” he said. “I’m ready.”

However, just before Shiro could take off to his lion, Coran, standing at one of the communication panels, said “wait!”

“What is it?” Allura asked, turning to look at him. “Is something wrong?”

“We’ve received another signal, and this one is coming from Lance’s communicator!”

“Lance?” Shiro said as both him and Allura ran over to Coran’s screen.

The Princess could feel her heart jump. “Is he alright? What’s going on?”

“I’m bringing up his feed now.”

A large image filled Coran’s screen. It appeared to be the feed from Lance’s helmet, which was laying on a large, expansive rock. A few green shrubs dotted the image and they could see a forestry area further away, however the main focus of the image was a small alien staring wide-eyed at the helmet’s camera.

It was a curious-looking thing. The alien had alarmingly large, bright purple eyes and big ears. It was silver, but had brown rings circling its arms, legs, tails, and neck. With its limbs bunched up underneath it, the little alien looked like it was ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

“Hello?” Allura said cautiously. The alien jumped at the sound of her voice, but didn’t run away. Its head turned to the side inquisitively as it noticed the Princess’s face on the projected screen.

“Where’s Lance?” Shiro said, looking intently at the image. “Why isn’t Lance with his helmet?”

“Helmet!” the alien said, motioning to its head with an elongated finger. “Helmet! Lance! Helmet!”

“What’s the little creature trying to say?” Coran asked, narrowing his eyes at the alien on screen.

It was jumping up and down now. “Understand? Helmet! Lance! Scare you!”

“It’s just speaking gibberish,” Coran huffed.

“No, wait,” Shiro insisted. “I think it’s trying to tell us something.”

“Tell us something!” the alien repeated. “Tell us something! Tell us something!” Then it turned around and began running away from the helmet, looking back as if it expected the faces on the screen to come following after it.

“Wait!” Shiro called, but the little alien was already disappearing into the bushes surrounding the outside of their view.

Without skipping a beat, Allura turned to Coran. “Can we track where the signal is coming from?”

“Already on it,” he said seriously, bent over his controls.

She then turned to the elder paladin standing next to her. “Shiro, I know I said that you would be going to retrieve the others, but considering that we don’t know what has happened to Lance and his lion, I think it would be better if you went after him instead. Coran and I will track down Keith and Hunk.”

He nodded. “Alright, but how will I get back to the castle?”

Coran pulled a small object from underneath his panel. It was a beacon-device that Allura remembered the Altean soldiers taking with them on their missions. “Because of our current problems with the lions,” Coran said, “you should take this with you in case we lose our other forms of contact. It’s a long-range locator, and was only meant to be used if the person wearing it needed to be rescued.” He pointed to the green center of the pin-sized device. “When you are ready to leave the planet, just press this. It will send us a signal and we’ll reopen the wormhole for you to come back to the castle.”

“Alright,” said Shiro, taking the beacon.

“Be careful,” Coran told him. “The planet that you’re going to isn’t on our registry, so we have no idea what you will be facing.”

Shiro nodded and closed his fist around the device. “I will. And I’ll bring Lance back.” Then he turned and ran down the walkway, heading to his lion.

Allura just hoped he was right.   


	4. Chapter 4

Consciousness came back to Lance slowly…and painfully. It was like climbing out from a pit of tar, and the more awake he became, the more he didn’t want to be. Everything hurt, but the thing he really wanted to escape from was a deep feeling of sickness he had all throughout his body.

He groaned, rolling his head and trying not to empty the contents of his stomach all over himself and whatever springy surface he was laying on. Guff voices met his ears, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Please, all he wanted was to go back to sleep.

Opening his eyes, Lance was greeted with darkness and confusion. He lifted his hand and found some sort of rough fabric covering the upper part of his face, but a hard and scaly hand grabbed his arm before he could take it off.

“Groua mugi imo,” a voice said. It sounded female, but was too deep for Lance to tell.

“Wher…” he croaked, swallowed, then tried again. “Where am I?”

The voice responded to him, but Lance wasn’t really listening to them anymore – not that he could understand what the person said in the first place. He was suddenly very, indescribably thirsty, more so then he had ever been in his life.

“Water,” he groaned, motioning for a cup with his hand. He tried to sit up, but a large palm push on his chest to lay back down. It was a good thing too, because the movement sent a wave of pain washing over him and sent most of his thoughts scattering like leaves. The strange aliens said something else, but he just shook his head. “Water,” he muttered again.

An argument broke out between the aliens standing around him, but in the end one of them seemed to give up the fight and leave. Lance was having a hard time understanding what was happening, however as soon as one of them lifted his head and placed a container against his lips, all he could think about was the wonderful liquid cooling his burning throat. It wasn’t quite water, but whatever it was had to be better than dying of thirst.

When there was no more liquid left, they let Lance fall back to the bed and he took a moment to center himself. It was strange how, even though his sight was gone, he still felt dizzy and disorientated. His perception of the world swayed in nauseating circles, and after a minute he couldn’t tell which way was which or really where the voices were coming from. They echoed slightly off the walls, giving Lance the impression of a cave or stone building. There were no windows here.

“So, you are awake.”

Lance turned his head, automatically trying to see where the voice was coming from. It was rough and deep like the others, but definitely understandable, even if her accent with thick.

“You can…speak English?”

A few slow and heavy footsteps later, and the person sat down a few feet before him. “I speak the language of the old ones,” she said. Her voice was old and weathered. “If it is known to you as this englesh, then that is what I speak.”

Lance felt his heart leap wish relief. He couldn’t describe how wonderful it felt talking to someone who understood what he was saying. “Where am I?” he asked. Now that he had a way to get answers, every question he had since waking up on this planet began to pile on top of each other, building pressure in his head. “Who are you? Where…where’s my lion?”

One of the aliens standing close to him hissed in a way that sounded like a reptile, but was silenced by the older one. “You fell from the sky like a ball of fury, sent by the gods,” she said, sounding harsh. “Your vessel decimated many of our sacred gaalgraf in its fall, and you were as well injured. My leader would have you executed for your crimes, but I urged him otherwise.”

“Crimes?” he croaked, “It was…an accident. My lion -”

 “Whatever it was,” she said, interrupting him. “An act such as this cannot go unpunished. We are the people of Corrobas, the land of stone and red water, where little mercy is granted to us from the gods. We depend on the growth of our gaalgraf, a gift from Gectour, to defend us in times of battle and starvation, and many were destroyed in your fall. I have convinced my grolken, chieftain, to wait until you are strong enough to walk, and then you will stand trial for what has been done.”

All the relief Lance had previously felt drained instantly out of him. Stand Trial? He couldn’t even see, for crow’s sake!

 _Maybe if they knew who I am,_ Lance thought urgently. “You can’t – I mean, the blue lion is part of Voltron, and I’m its piolet! It…it’s the only thing with any hope of defeating Zarkon!”

“I know nothing of what you speak,” she said edgily.

Lance groaned and placed a hand on his throbbing forehead. _It’s just my luck I that I land on the_ only _planet that hasn’t been taken over by Zarkon._  

Or maybe not, seeing as he would probably have been captured by the Galra if it were.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked, desperate for ideas. “I-I can make it up to you.” Lance tried to say more, but a fit of coughing overpowered his voice and he was forced to stop.

The elder Corrobian stood. “Rest and recover, young Trrilab, for you will soon face our grolken, and he will decide what your fate shall be.”

Then she left, accompanied by the other natives that had been with him when he woke up.

Lance let go of a shaky breath. Stand trial? Just how much more ridiculous could this situation get?

Despite himself, Lance let out a coughing laugh. He had been laughing a lot lately, even though everything that was happening to him was the least funny things he could come up with. Maybe laughing was the way his own way of facing death.

_Please…please someone come find me._

* * *

 

 

Shiro let out a deep breath, testing the air. The oxygen levels on the planet seemed ok, however everything was still and silent. No birds – or any kind of nosy alien, Shiro supposed – could be heard. There was no sound of running water or wind, and if Shiro couldn’t see all the rock-clinging plants around him and the larger forests in the distance, he would have sworn nothing lived here.

Shiro walked away from his lion and headed toward where he had seen the blue one from his landing. It wasn’t very far away, but he tried to be cautious anyhow. Something had separated Lance from his helmet – whether he had done it intentionally or not – and Shiro didn’t want to take any chances.

When he reached the head of the lion, Shiro could hardly hold in his worry. The mighty weapon looked dead. It was lying on its side, eyes dim and lifeless. The force-field that normally surrounded the lion when it was not being used was absent, and large black marks spotted it, as if dozens of bombs had been thrown its way.

 _What could have done this?_ Shiro wondered. It was not unusual for the lions to be damaged, however what truly worried him was the fact that the lion seemed totally shut down. None of its self-repairing abilities or defense procedures, which were supposed to come on when the lion was healing, had been activated.

It really did seem dead.

Walking to the side, Shiro could see the long stretch of black that marked where the lion had crashed. It wasn’t a rock it had landed on, but some type of dark soil. Bushes and other, bulb-shaped plants were sprawled all around it, having been uprooted by the spray of soil in the lion’s landing. From what he could tell, it looked as if the lion had slid across the ground while upright, and had later fallen onto its side.

Standing around, however, wasn’t going to help him find Lance.

Shiro brought up his helmet locator, only to watch the screen that popped up fizzle and die. “Ok,” he muttered. “Guess I’m going to be looking for Lance the old-fashioned way.”

Pulling down his arm, he began scouring the land around the lion’s head for clues. Aside from the upset soil, there appeared to be no major disturbances around the fallen lion. Not that rock was easy to disturb, as rock seemed to be the major surface on the planet.

Shiro looked up at a large incline above his head. A higher vantage point would be a good place to start, so, taking another deep breath, he started the tough climb to the top. By the time he reached it, he was panting, so he took a moment to focus on what he could see.

The view from up high seemed even worse than down below. Here, even though he was barley eye-level with the blue lion, he could see most of the extensive damage the crash had done to the land. It stretched for what seemed like miles.

 _What happened here?_ Shiro asked himself once again. _This….this wasn’t caused by the wormhole, was it? I knew it was bad, but…not this bad._

He clenched his robotic fist, feeling the red energy spark and flow over it.

Shiro turned around and began making his way through the brush on top of the hill, only to freeze up a few seconds later. There, sitting in a small clearing, sat a small blue helmet.

He blinked, almost scared to move in case it was just his imagination. Finally he ran over and picked it up, whipping some of the dirt off of it. Whatever had happened, Lance’s helmet looked as if it had been put through the ringer, just like his lion. It was burned and scratched in places, and when he tapped the side, and hologram screen didn’t even try to turn on. Whatever that little monkey-creature had done to it in order for it to work, the helmet was now spent.

 _I need to find Lance, and quickly,_ Shiro thought. _There’s no way Lance could have gotten though this without some type of injury._

So where could he have gone? How had his helmet, which he should have with him at all times, gotten so far from the blue lion?

“Ima?”

Shiro flipped around. There, sitting just a few meters away, was the answer to his questions. Well, at least for one of them.

It was the small, silver-furred alien they had seen on Lance’s helmet feed. It stared at him with wide eyes, looking as if it had been waiting for Shiro to notice it this whole time.

“It’s you,” he said, pointing.

“It’s you,” the alien repeated in a high voice, pointing back at him.

Shiro paused, not sure what to do now. The alien was just staring at him with those huge purple eyes, as if it expected him to do something spectacular.

He took a tentative step closer, not wanting to scare it away. “Were you the one who found Lance’s helmet?” he asked it.

“Helmet!” it said. That seemed to be the magic word, because it jumped right from where it was sitting straight onto the item in Shiro’s hands.

“Um, ok,” he said, holding out the helmet so he could get a better view of the monkey…thing. “So you like Lance’s helmet. How did you manage to turn it on?”

The monkey-creature bobbed up and down, as if it was incapable of nodding without the use of its entire body. Then it slipped off, grabbing the helmet and taking it with him on the way down.

“Hey!” Shiro called, trying to snatch it back, but the little alien just skipped out of his way. He chased the thing until it become very apparent that doing so only encourage it to keep running away from him, like some kind of game. Its skinny arms must have been a lot stronger than they looked, in order to lift such a heavily-armored piece of equipment.

“Lance helmet, like this” it said, tapping on it with one of its very long fingers. Then the alien lifted it up and set it over its head, as if showing Shiro how to properly put it on. The hat was so big, the little alien looked as if it was trying to hide inside it. Shiro couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the picture in front of him.

The alien harrumphed and crosses its arms, which were so long it was able to do it twice over. It didn’t seem to like being laughed at.

“Sorry,” Shiro said, but his smile quickly faded. “When we saw you on the video feed, it looked as if you knew where Lance is.”

The alien lifted up the helmet, however it didn’t say anything – just glanced up at him and away a few times. Shiro squatted so he could look at it eye to eye. “This is very important,” he told it seriously. “Lance, the owner of this helmet, could be hurt, so I need to find him as soon as possible. Do you have any idea where he might be?” 

Looking down, the little creature lifted the helmet off its head regretfully, like a child who had just been caught stealing a cookie. “Scare Lance, scare Copycat,” it muttered, not meeting his eyes.

“So your name is Copycat, then?” he asked. The little alien nodded. “Alright Copycat,” Shiro said, continuing. “I know you’re scared, but if you have any idea about where Lance might be, it’s important that you show me. I can’t do it without your help.”

Copycat signed, then lifted up Lance’s helmet like a peace offering. Shiro smiled and took it. “Thank you,” he said.

Then the little alien climbed up Shiro’s arm and sat on his shoulder. “Lance is,” it said, pointing away from where the lion had crashed, toward the vast expanse of green forest in the distance.

“Alright,” Shiro said. However, before he started toward forest, he took Lance’s helmet and set it gently over Copycat’s head. “You hold onto that,” he told the little alien firmly. Copycat nodded once, gripping the helmet as if Lance’s life depended on his ability to hold onto it.

Then they set off together, toward the spread of trees in the distance

 _I’m coming Lance,_ Shiro thought. _Just hang on._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro's getting closer...
> 
> Sorry if it may seem like Lance is a little ooc right now. He's been through a lot, but have no fear! I plan on adding his normal wisecrakcs back in a little later on.
> 
> Thanks everyone for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Lance knew he wasn’t getting any better.

It wasn’t very hard to figure out. A fierce fever had gripped him, one that that chilled him to the bone and burned him alive all at the same time, making Lance shake violently. Now, however, he was so tired that all his worn body could do was shiver. Breathing had become a chore he wasn’t certain he could continue forever.

The female Corrobians attending to him could do little to help. They set cool rags on his forehead, smeared a cream onto his burned skin beneath the bandages, and feed him some strange sludge that he would’ve thrown up if his body possessed the strength, however nothing made him feel any better. Medicine seemed to be something this planet had yet to develop.

“Uggra imala igmo,” said one in a low voice, as if not wanting anyone to overhear. Lance didn’t need to speak their language to know they were talking about him. Maybe they would be glad about his death, or maybe they were disappointed that he would never stand trail – Lance didn’t know. His injuries combined with the nights spent out in the wilderness had taken their toll, and one thing was becoming more and more apparent.

He was dying.   

He was never going to see his family again – not his mom, not his dad, not any of his brothers or sisters. He would never form Voltron again, or fly Blue and hear the lion’s comforting voice as it guided him through a battle.

He would never again hang out with the team in the chill room, get mommed by Shiro, or even start some pointless argument with Keith.

It was all over. He was doomed to die here, with not a single familiar face by his side.

Alone.

The old woman that had spoken to him before – which the others called Helgrakim, or “wise one” – came to see him several more times, but Lance was in too delirious a state to fully understand what she was talking about.

In the end Helgrakim seemed to understand that Lance was not getting any better, and decided to stay by his side for a while and keep him company, seeing as she was the only one Lance could understand. She even told him a story about how a young Corrobian maiden named Almorigo who’d drowned herself in the water chambers of the gods. Doing so had appeased the anger of a deity named Tokigra and saved her lover from a horrible fate, however her act had forever stained the water on Corrobas red.

Lance wasn’t very sure about the validity of the story, but it was nice to not think about the pain for a while and just listen to her deep, knowing voice. It reminded him of days back on earth, when him and all the other kids in his family would gather around and listen to their grandma tells talk about the “good ol’ days.”

“How old are you?” he rasped to her at some point, which was a question he had been wondering for a while. He remembered something about it being rude to ask a lady her age, but he figured that, since he was dying and all, he might as well.

The Corrobian made a deep, harsh sound that Lance realized meant she was laughing. “I am as old as the stone,” she answered. “Old enough to have seen the sun created by the hands of the gods, and I will one day watch it burn.”

Lance was silent for some time as he contemplated this. _Wow, that’s like…really old._

After a while, however, Lance was unable to stay awake and listen. He drifted in and of awareness, always waking up and wondering how long he had left to suffer. It was like torture, going to sleep and feeling sicker and wearier every time he woke up.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep going anymore.

It was silent the next time Lance awoke. No one sat by his side, trying to tame the fever that threatened to burn him alive, just like Helgrakim had said she would watch the sun do one day. Laying here alone reminded him of his time spent out in the wilderness, wondering if he was going to die in silence and darkness, until he realized that it was likely still going to happen.

He shivered.

Drifting off again was easy, however it didn’t last very long. Something was poking him on the side of the head, keeping him from being able to go back to sleep. He tried to ignore it, but whatever it was persisted.

“Umg…” he moaned, his throat dry and cracked. He tried to shoo the thing away, but his arm was too tired to follow his commands.

“Helmet,” said a small, high voice next to his ear.

Lance froze, his brain trying to process this new information that in what felt like slow motion. He could swear he had heard that voice before. Was he dreaming, or was that…?

“Copy…cat?”

The little alien clapped and jumped on top of his chest, which made him groan. Was he hallucinating, or was Copycat a lot heavier than he remembered?

“Helmet,” it said again, sounding incredibly impressed with itself.

Confused, Lance mustered up a last bit of energy and tried lifting his arm. Copycat seemed to know what he wanted, because the little alien grabbed his hand and pulled it up, placing the lifeless limb on something hard and round that was laying on his chest.

“….You found my helmet,” he rasped in disbelief, almost too shocked to speak. “Copycat, you….”

 Then he halted at a voice to his right, heart skipping a beat.

“…Lance?”

Lance suddenly found it much harder to breathe, too tired and sick to believe what he was hearing. It was this moment he had been wishing for his whole time on this planet, yet now that it was here, he didn’t know what to do. That wasn’t an alien’s voice, but a humans – a genuine, born-on-earth human – and someone Lance had looked up to even before they’d first met.

“Shiro?”

The person in question came running up to his side, like some kind of hero from the comic books he used to read as a kid.

Ha, maybe he really was going crazy.

“Lance – oh god, what happened?” Shiro said with more relief and worry than Lance guessed anymore else in the universe was capable pushing into their voice.

“Hey mom,” Lance joked, smiling tiredly. “Took you…long enough.”

Shiro seemed to be trying to give him a hug and evaluate his condition all at the same time. He touched the bandages over his arms and face, but didn’t remove them. “Yeah buddy, I’m finally here. You just hold on, ok kiddo? I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Alright,” said Copycat, jumping off of his chest with Lance’s helmet.

Sliding one arm under his legs and one arm under his back, Shiro tried to lift the blue paladin off the bed, only to stop when Lance gasped as his shoulder flared in agony.

“What is it?” Shiro asked, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

Lance tried to motion toward his left side, but his body was frozen up from weariness and pain. He was lightheaded and disorientated, blood rushing in his ears, and he suddenly couldn’t remember which part of his body was hurting the most anymore.

“I can’t…” he gasped, but Shiro seemed to understand what he was trying to say.

“I sorry,” he said, and he really did sound it. “You’ll have to bear with it a little while longer, k buddy? You’ve been a trooper, man, really. Everything’s going to be ok, I swear it.”

Then Shiro lifted him a second time, and Lance didn’t have the strength to combat the wave of pain that washed over him. He let himself drift away from the world again, content to know that Shiro was going to take care of him now.

Everything was going to be ok. Shiro had promised.

* * *

 

 

Shiro almost had a heart attack when Lance shuddered and fell limp in his arms.

For a moment it was like the world had stopped spinning, and everything slowed to a crawl.

_Oh god, please no. He can’t be…_

“Lance!” Shiro called, trying to gently shake the paladin. He still didn’t know the full extent of Lance’s injuries, and doing anything to him only increased the risk of permeant damage. He lifted Lance up and placed his ear to the boy’s chest, trying to listen over his own raging heartbeat. At first it seemed like everything alive inside him had been snuffed out.

Then Lance gasped, breathing in one ragged, painful-sounding breath, and the world began to spin again. Shiro let out a sigh of relief, but he had little time to be thankful.

He needed to get Lance away from here and into a healing pod as fast as humanly possible – and more so, if Shiro had his way.

Following Copycat to see Lance laying there had been like entering a living nightmare, and Shiro knew he was never going to forget that image of his friend, laying lifeless on a makeshift cot, for as long as he lived. He knew the kid would likely be injured, but….

Lance was in bad shape.

He was paler and thinner than Shiro remembered ever seeing him, covered in the tattered remains of his suit and tan-colored bandages that must have been made by the locals. They were wrapped around his arms, chest, and eyes, but Shiro didn’t dare remove them. Angry red and blue splotches dotted his visible skin, and his bare shoulder was swollen and colored an ugly purple.

The image reminded Shiro of everything he wanted to forget about his time spent as a Galrian captive. He remembered swearing that he would never let anything like what had happened to him and the other captives happen to his team – not as long as there was air in his lungs.

And he had failed.

Shiro looked down at the unconscious boy in his arms, trying not to hold him too tight. Lance looked just that – a boy – and for the first time Shiro realized just how young the paladin really was.

He wasn’t a man, not like Shiro had been forced to become. He was a child, and he didn’t deserve this.

 _I swear I’ll get you out of here,_ Shiro thought, hunching protectively over the boy as he made the vow to himself. _I swear it._

“Copycat,” Shiro said in a commanding voice, and the little silver and brown alien stared up at him from where it sat on the ground, still holding Lance’s helmet.  “I need you to lead us back to the lions.”

Not put off by the demand, the little alien bobbed once, then set the helmet back onto its head and took off, heading out of the cave. Shiro followed behind, trying not to jostle the fragile body in his arms. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, he might have laughed at the fact that he was basically following a battered blue helmet running along the ground.

When he emerged from the underground hollow, Shiro was forced to stop. Copycat had disappeared, and surrounding the cave was an angry, torch-wielding horde of the strange aliens that inhabited this planet.

They were much stouter and heaver-looking than humans, with skin leathery skin the same color as the dark stone their land was covered in. A trail of spines led from the base of their foreheads to the end of short, stubby tails with no hair or fur. All of them wore hide armor, and none of them looked happy. Evidentially, they had discovered the unconscious guard Shiro was forced to knock out in order to sneak inside the cave.

They gathered around, hissing at him and revealing large incisors that looked to be made for grinding stone. None of them had any weapons aside from the torches they carried, but Shiro had the feeling they didn’t need them.

Shiro backed toward the cave entrance, eyes flicking from one alien to the next. They had yet to make a move of attack, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. As carefully as he could, Shiro leaned down and placed Lance upon the ground, causing the boy to produce a pained moan.

“I’m sorry,” Shiro said to him quietly, before straitening and taking a defensive stance over the body on the ground.

“This is my teammate,” he told the group of aliens, trying to stress the urgency in his voice. “He’s injured, and he needs medical treatment as soon as possible. I have to get him out of here!”

Their hissing was the only indication Shiro had that they understood, however none moved to either attack or get out of his way. It seemed as if they were waiting for some kind of signal.

And it didn’t take long for Shiro to find out what.

Behind them, toward where Shiro had seen the alien village, a howl sounded. The hair on Shiro’s neck and back stood on end.

Wolves, these people had wolves with them.

The crowd of aliens smiled nastily as two huge shapes lumbered from the darkness behind them. They were the size of small horses and savage-looking, with long, muscled limbs and spines much like the natives trailing down their lean bodies.

Shiro tensed as they approached and placed his robotic arm out in front of him, slowly beginning to move away from Lance’s body. He knew the aliens would have killed Lance by now if they wanted him dead, however if there was going to be a fight, Shiro wanted to be well away from the injured boy.

 _I don’t have time for this,_ he thought angrily.

Then the first one lunged, dripping fangs headed straight for his throat. He blocked with his right arm, and the monstrous beast clamped down on it. Setting his feet, Shiro used its momentum and heaved with all the strength of his legs and shoulders to toss the wolf to the side. The second beast, however, attacked before he had a chance to free himself and he was forced to block with his flesh and blood arm, catching it in the throat. The force of the impact knocked him to the ground, and as the beast’s immense weight pushed down on him and he desperately tried to keep the snapping jaws from tearing away his face, Shiro realized just how outmatched he was.

These were not like the dogs on earth, or even the captives he was forced to fight in the games. Previously, even when he had been clearly outmatched, Shiro was always able to find a flaw in his opponent’s fighting style in order to beat them. These beasts, however, had no fighting style. They played dirty – dirtier than any of his previous rivals – and so Shiro was going to have to dig deep in the mud if he wanted to come out of this fight on top.

Lance needed him to.

And so Shiro allowed the flow of energy contained in his arm to rise up, feeling the familiar, calming fury he knew was caused partially by the druid magic and partially by his need to survive.

The wolf stranding over him was snapping and snarling, the fangs just inches away from his skin, however Shiro was easily able to kick it off with his renewed energy. He spring up, ready and waiting for the wolves now as the jeering crowd began giving them a wider berth.

The next attack was met in the air, as Shiro caught the first wolf mid-leap on the side of the head and slammed it into the ground. Before he could do anything further, however, the second wolf struck him from behind, clamping down on his left shoulder.

Shiro didn’t even feel it. He grabbed behind him, getting a handful of the skin from around the beast’s neck and hauling it over his shoulder. After that the fight became a sort of wrestling dance as the wolves tried to avoid his strikes and he tried to avoid their teeth. Neither was completely successful however, as just when Shiro was able to land a devastating kick to one’s ribs, the other clamped down in his left arm.

Shiro grabbed the monster’s top jaw with his hand and tore it off, giving little regard for his own flesh. He twisted its head to the side and the wolf was unable to resist without breaking its own neck. It was forced to the ground and there Shiro held it, glaring as the beast panted beneath him.

All he needed to do was squeeze, and the monster’s skull would collapse under his hand like a paper cup. Shiro felt the energy spark down his arm, urging him to do it – to simply tighten his grip and eliminate a threat.

Kill it.

It was no less than the monster beneath him would have done.

All he need to do was squeeze.

Then Shiro met the eye of the wolf and stopped, feeling like his head had just come up from underwater.

What was he doing?

 _I…_ Shiro swallowed past the thickness in his throat. _I’m not…_

The realization that he was no longer in control had Shiro letting go and jumping away from the creature on the ground. It got to its feet and backed away from him to join the other wolf, both of them glaring at the black paladin with a newfound glint of caution in their eyes. The animal seemed to realize just how close it had been to death.

Panting, Shiro looked down at his shaking hands. Something was terribly wrong. The color that shaped his arm was a deep red, unlike the normal pink it usually had. Crimson sparks covered it, causing the robotic limb to shake more violently then his flesh and blood hand. Clenching it into a fist, Shiro lowered his arm, focusing hard as he tried to keep its spasms under his control.

The circle of aliens had back away, gazing toward Shiro with much the same expressions as the wolves, only their emotions were not masked by the monster’s prideful demeanor.

Fear.

Shiro took a step forward, and the ones closest to him began backing away, murmuring in their own strange language. He raised his arm, and they flinched, gazing at it as if his glowing limb was some kind of holy bringer of death.

Maybe it was.

“I am taking my friend now,” he called, not caring if they could understand him or not. The meaning of his tone was evident enough. “Do any of you want to try and stop me?”

None of them made a move to bar his way as Shiro walked over and bent to pick Lance up. He paused for a moment, looking at his glowing arm in concern before deciding he didn’t have the time to worry about it. The kid was still breathing, but Shiro knew that could change at any moment if he didn’t get him out of here soon.

“What is the meaning of this?” yelled a gruff, accented voice from behind them, startling the crowd into splitting. Shiro was surprised to realize that he could understand what the voice was saying.

Out of the darkness walked not a wolf this time, but an old, haggard-looking alien covered in a shawl of every color imaginable. She – for Shiro realized that it _was_ a female, however strange her appearance – stared at Shiro with two glowing yellow eyes and pointed a shriveled finger at Lance.

“That boy is not yours to rescue, helmgit,” she claimed, and her words, even though they were not very loud, cut clearly through the fearful silence. “He has done our tribe a great wrong by destroying holy soil, and must remain here to carry out his punishment.”

“He’s sick and injured,” Shiro said. “If you don’t let me take him now, he’ll die.”

She lowered her arm. “That is for the gods to decide,” she said heavily.

Shiro grit his teeth. Like hell he was going to let some unknown gods depict weather or not his friend lives or dies!

“I’m leaving,” he said darkly, “and I won’t be as gracious as I was to the wolves with anyone who gets in my way.”

Starting forward, Shiro watched as the aliens parted around him like water, letting him pass without interruption. He could see Copycat waiting for him at the edge of the forest.

“Be warned, helmgrit,” called the old one after him. “The cycle of the sun will continue on its path, no matter what you or I do to stop it. Though you may have ensued the boy’s life for now, there may come a day when you will regret your choice.”

Not understanding the meaning of her words, Shiro simply set his jaw and began to run.

 _Never,_ he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well Finally, someone finds Lance. Now they just need to figure out their... little problem. 
> 
> I can't say when the next chapter will be out because I'm trying (trying) to help with my sister's wedding which is coming up next month. Plus school will be starting soon, so who know how that's gunna work...
> 
> Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

Lance floated in and out of what was real and what was not. He could feel the threshold of pain and the _wrongness_ just at the edge of consciousness, but he didn’t want to go there. This place, wherever it was, was one where he could have a respite from everything. He was afraid of not having that anymore.

_Wake up, little Orrni._

There was deep, throbbing voice echoing around him, different from the constant hum he could hear far, far away. This one was with him, here, and it wanted him to swim up to the surface.

No, he couldn’t go there. It was all _wrong_ there. He just wanted to stay this place, where he was safe and comfortable, where nothing could penetrate the threshold.

_Do not fall any deeper, little Orrni, or you will never be able to come back._

But that was ok, wasn’t it? He didn’t need to come back. This place didn’t hurt or _burn_. This place didn’t ask him to keep going and going and going even when everything inside of him was already spent. This place would let him rest…

_WAKE UP!_

Then something changed. There was a solid _thump_ , and Lance’s world was suddenly flipped upside down. He fell form the darkness into a world bright with pain and sickness. Lance cried out as the sudden stimulation overwhelmed his head and set his nerves on fire.

“…m sorry!” a different voice cried breathlessly. Lance could feel two strong arms supporting him from underneath his legs and shoulders, and his head was leaning against a heaving chest. He bounced up and down slightly as if the person holding him was moving at a fast pace.

“I’m so sorry ‘bout and that, man. I’m going as fast as I can, alright? Everything’s ok.”

Lance couldn’t understand what was happening. Who was holding him? Was it the same person speaking to him from that restful place? He attempted to move, but one hand was pinned against the body and his other hand refused to respond. As he tried, the person holding him hit a bump and his unmoving hand slid from its resting place and fell downward. The movement caused a sharp pull in his shoulder that almost caused him to pass out again.    

“….hear me, Lance? Just hold on. We’re almost at the…listening to me? Lance? Lan….”

Despite the rhythmic bumping up and down and the constant, reassuring chatter, Lance couldn’t seem to stay where he was. He wasn’t supposed to be here, anyway. Everything was wrong here.

_You may go back to sleep now, little Orrni. I’ve got you. You’re going to need the rest._

And so with those last words, Lance allowed himself to fall back across the threshold, only this time the embrace was warm and comforting. As a wave of relief washed over him, Lance hoped that maybe he wouldn’t have to come back this time.

* * *

 

“Just you wait, kiddo. Something tells me that you’re gunna have your own crew someday, and you’re gunna fly with them to worlds so far away, we can’t even imagine. I bet my bottom dollar you’re gunna be part of something that makes the whole universe sit up and take notice.”

Katie smiled at her dad. It was just like him to come up with something so ridicules, it would never in a million years come true, but she took pride in his words anyway. 

“You bet!” Katie said, stuffing another bite of food into her mouth. “I’ma be dha best piwt evor!”     

“I bet you ten dollars your crew’ll be just as crazy as you are!” said her brother, grinning. “And don’t talk with your mouth full!”

Katie swallowed before picking up her fork and flinging a brussel sprout at Matt, using the utensil like a catapult. “I’m not crazy!” she proclaimed. “ _You’re_ the one who’s crazy!”

Grabbing his own fork, Matt went to toss a piece of food back at her, but he was stopped by a raised hand from their father.

“Now now,” the older man laughed. “No throwing food at the table. And Katie, you know that’s not really true, right?”

She stopped making silly faces at her brother just long enough to glance over at him. “What’s not really true?”

“Come on, Katie.” He winked at her. “You know what I’m talking about.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, really. What is it?”

“That you’re not crazy.”

Katie paused at her face-making. That was a strange thing for her father to say. Had she heard him right?

“What are you talking about?” she laughed at him. “I’m not crazy…”

No one else was laughing anymore. Her family stared at her, their expressions suddenly and bizarrely concerned. It was a startling difference from the happy faces they had been making just moments ago. Katie felt like she had missed something important.

“I’m sorry, honey,” her mother said sweetly, “but you are.”

Were they being serious? “What are you…?”

“You’re talking to us, aren’t you?” her brother noted. “We’re dead. You’d have to be crazy to talk to dead people.”

No this…this wasn’t right. This was some kind of stupid joke. Had to be.

“Oh ha ha,” she said. “Very funny, guys.”

“No, he’s right,” said her dad sadly. “We’ve been dead for a while now. We were killed by Zarkon, remember?”

Katie felt all the blood drain from her face. Who was she talking to? This wasn’t her father! This wasn’t her _family_!

Katie’s chair toppled to the floor as she abruptly stood up, pointing to the man across the table. “Who are you? You’re not my dad!”

The thing wearing her father’s skin smiled, and he looked so sad it almost made Katie’s heart break just to look at him. “You’re right, I’m not your father, and he’s not your brother. We were taken by the Galra on the Galaxy Garrison mission to Kerberos. They tortured and killed us on their ship. We died waiting for you, Pidge. You never came to save us.”

 “No…” Pidge said, backing away from the table, but the faces of her dead father and brother kept following her. “No. No, No, No, No, No!”

“Where are you now, Pidge?” they asked. “You’re a paladin of Voltron, so why haven’t you saved us yet? Why, Pidge? Tell us why!”

“I’m trying!” she sobbed, desperately stumbling away from the haunted faces of her lost family. She didn’t want to see them, not like _this_. “I’ve been trying for _so long_! Believe me, I’m trying…”

Pidge covered her face with her hands, not wanting to look at those sad expressions any longer and trying to conceal her shame. She could still hear them chanting, though, over and over and over again the same words:

“Where are you now?”

* * *

Pidge was crying when she woke up, hands still covering her face, not quite ready to admit that she was awake. It took her a few minutes to shrug off the fogginess of sleep and realize where she was, but when she did, Pidge immediately cut off the flow of tears.

She was inside the castle, having just arrived there late the night before. She was back where it was safe, and she didn’t need tears.  

It had taken a few days to repair the damage done to her lion after the whole wormhole incident, but afterwards it had been easy to contact HQ and arrange for another wormhole back to the team.

Or most of the team, at least. 

Pidge scrubbed at her eyes, trying to dispel the feeling of dread that still weighed heavily on her shoulders. She could still remember the dream with perfect clarity, but that didn’t mean she wanted to. It was startling just how much her subconscious had been able to take such a happy memory and warp it into something…else. At first she had thought it was something sinister, but now Pidge wasn’t so sure. That hadn’t felt like a dream. That had felt real, as if she were really back in those simpler days before the name Pidge and before that fateful mission to Kerberos.

She still wished she could go back to that time, when everyone was together and they were happy, even if it meant leaving Voltron behind.

Pidge was interrupted from her thoughts by the sound of heavy footsteps running down the hall outside. The door to her room whooshed open a second later, revealing a breathless-looking Hunk.

“Pidge!” Hunk gasped. “Pidge-” He stopped, looking at her concernedly. “Hey, are you ok? You look like you were crying.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Pidge lied, rubbing again at her eyes with the palms of her hands. “Just kinda tried. I didn’t sleep very well.”

He didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure? Because-”

“It’s nothing,” she lied again. “What were you going to tell me?”

“Oh! Uh…” Hunk took a moment to think, before jumping back to attention. “Yeah, I remember! It’s Lance!”

Pidge sat up ramrod straight in her bed. “What?! What about Lance?!”

“Lance is here – they found him!”

“They found him?”

“Yeah, Shiro brought him in less than an hour ago.”

“What?!” Pidge exclaimed angrily, leaping from the bed and crossing the room as quickly as her wobbly legs would carry her. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!” 

Hunk lifted up his hands. “Hey, don’t look at me! I just found out from Keith. He came barging into my room looking like he was about to murder someone. I ran here as quick as I could.”

“Well, where is he?”

Hunk pointed down the hall to his left. “Keith said they took him to the east medical bay. But Pidge-”

Pidge took off without letting him finish, running as fast as she could. Why would they have taken him to the med bay? If Lance was injured, wouldn’t it have been better to put him directly into a healing pod?

And why hadn’t anyone bloody _told_ her sooner?!

Pidge could feel a ball of dread forming in the pit her stomach. Something wasn’t right here, and she had a feeling she would find out exactly what it was when she reached the med bay.   

“Pidge!” Hunk called from behind. “Pidge, wait up, man! I can’t….I can’t run that fast!”

Pidge slowed until the larger paladin was able to catch up, however she refused to slow her pace below that of a jog. Pidge knew there was likely little she could do for Lance had he been injured, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to get there as fast as humanly possible.

“Do you know anything? Is he alright?”

Hunk shook his head. “No clue. Keith didn’t look happy, though.”

He sounded worried.

They were greeted by the sounds of shouting when they reached the east med bay. Both Pidge and Hunk slowed when as they approached the door. Based on the tone of the argument, neither one of them wanted to be hit by any flying medical equipment as soon as they walked inside.

“I said you need to leave!” Shiro was yelling. He sounded stressed and angry, the kind of angry he only got when someone was needlessly putting themselves in danger.

“I will once you answer my questions!” Keith shouted back at him.

Pidge entered the large hospital room, Hunk following right behind her. Shiro and Keith were facing each other like two pitbulls on leashes. Keith was furious, standing in front of Shiro and looking like he wanted to strangle him. The older paladin, however, looked frustrated and tried. He had large bags under his eyes, and his uniform dirty and torn. Pidge could see bloody patches of skin at his left shoulder and arm.

Also, there was a small, brown and silver alien sitting on Shiro’s shoulder that was wearing lance’s helmet. Pidge was about to make a comment on that strange spectacle, but once she caught sight of the person laying on the central medical table, Pidge forgot all about the older paladin’s injuries and his…little friend.

Lance looked horrible.

The young boy’s uniform had been cut away at the waist to reveal an array or horrid-looking burns, and what was left of the outfit was so dirty she couldn’t even see it’s identifiable blue anymore. While most of his chest was wrapped in clean bandages, the skin she could see was blistered and colored an angry red. More bandages were wrapped around his arms and neck, and there was even some wrapped around his _face_.

Coran stood by a screen near the head of the table, typing ferociously, and Allura was bending over Lance’s still form as she laid a hand on his sweaty forehead.

“Lance!” Pidge gasped. She suddenly felt very ill.

Shiro glanced over at her. “All of you need to _get out_ ,” he said in a low warning. “None of you can do anything to help Lance right now, so you all need to _leave._ ”

“Why isn’t he in a healing pod?!” Pidge asked, aghast. Now she understood a little of why Keith was so angry. “Why is he just _lying_ there?”

Keith tried to shove past Shiro, but their leader threw out his robotic arm and stopped him. “Keith, I said-”

“To _hell_ with what you said!” Keith’s eyes were alight with fury as he glared at Shiro, gritting his teeth. “That’s my _friend_ over there! You can’t just-”

“Enough!”

Allura had left Lance’s side and was now scowling at them. Her eyes were red from crying, but now there was a righteous fury in them that silenced everyone and had Pidge fearing for her life.

“I cannot believe all of you!” she seethed. “Your teammate is lying there injured and sick, and all you can do is _argue_ with each other? You should be ashamed of yourselves!”

Pidge took a step back, but Keith remained unfazed by the princess’s shaming. “Then why aren’t we helping him, huh?” he demanded. “Why is Lance still here and not in a pod-”

“ _Because_ ,” Allura ground out, “Lance’s shoulder is broken, and until we figure out how bad the damage is and where his bones need to be aligned, we can’t allow him to enter a healing pod. If he does enter one, he may never be able to use his left arm again.”

That sobered everyone up. Keith stepped away from Shiro, apparently humbled by what the princess had told them. Pidge looked over at Lance, watching his chest heave up and down and listening to his rattled breathing. He looked almost more feverish now than just a few moments ago.

Pidge looked down at the floor in shame. Allura was right. They _should_ be ashamed of themselves. They should never be assuming the worst of their teammates, especially at a time like this. Especially now that Lance needed them.

Pidge opened her to mouth to apologize, but just at that moment, Lance woke up and began to scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that took forever. 
> 
> Sorry about the wait guys, but to say I'm sorry, I drew a quick picture of Copycat for you, which you can see [here](http://doorsteptoheaven.deviantart.com/art/Copycat-639654083) (Never let it be said that I don't love you all, despite what my writing may say about me). 
> 
> I know some people are unsure of what pronouns to use for Pidge, but she herself admitted to being a girl to everyone, and so that's good enough for me. 
> 
> I'm really tried, so I'm going to bed now. See ya'll later.


	7. Chapter 7

 

Lance screamed.

It was a terrible way to wake up, screaming. 

The pain built its way up, past his chest, clawing its way up his throat until he couldn’t contain the sound any longer. There was nothing he could do to stop it. His bones were on fire. It felt as if his entire body was turning in on itself, trying with all its power to destroy the little that was left of him.

He had to leave, he had to get away-

People were yelling, a blurred, muddy droning he could just make out past the shrieking in his head. They shouted at each other in a pattern he couldn’t detect, making his skull throb all the harder.

Then there was a female voice above the overs. A name came to his mind – Allura? – but he didn’t possess the power to understand what it meant. All he knew was that he was in pain, and that he would die if it didn’t stop soon.

Hands pushed against his chest and legs, and Lance couldn’t contain another raw scream from ripping its way out of him when someone pressed on his shoulder. He struggled with the little strength he could, trying in vain to get away from whoever his oppressor was.

There was a pinching sensation at his neck, and Lance could feel the frantic drumbeat of his heart begin to slow. The scream died in the back of his throat, transforming into a tortured moan.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the blinding burning eased into a deep throb, and sound began to return to him as Lance felt his thoughts rise up from the ocean of panic. The agitated voices were quieter now. Lance tried to focus on what they were saying, but he they were too fast and his brain was too muddled for him to make out the words.

Lance’s head lulled to the side and he groaned between quick, stabbing breaths. A pressure against his ribs kept him from breathing very deeply, and every inhale brought a sharp stab of pain.

“…ance? Can you hear me?”

Lance tried to open his eyes, but something must have been keeping them closed. He couldn’t see who was talking to him. There was someone holding onto his hand, and the person squeezed tighter when he tried to move his fingers.

“Hey there, kiddo. You can….you hear me? Everything’s ok…made it! You’re back on the ship. You’re safe…”

It was Shiro. The black paladin was talking to him at a speedy pace, almost rambling, and Lance could only make out snatches of what he said.

“Shiro…” he moaned. It burned his throat to speak. “Shiro, Shiro Shiro, Shiro….”

The grip on his hand tightened. “Shh, Lance. It’s ok buddy. I’m right here. Don’t try to talk, ok?”

Lance tried to roll his head in Shiro’s direction, but, even though the man was clearly to the right, it was hard to pinpoint anything. The world was spinning and swirling so much, he just wished he could get a better grasp of something. He wished he could _see_. Moving his other hand solicited no response when he tried lifting it to his eyes.

“Shiro…” he tried to say, but his words were almost slurred past recognition. “Wherrss…wheress…m’ arm?”

“It’s still there, man. Your shoulder’s a little busted up, so try not to move, alright?”

Lance gave a small nod in response, but in truth he hadn’t really taken in a word of what was said. His perception of the world had begun to slow and quicken at a nauseating pace, and everything was in a different position from a moment ago.

Shiro rambled more words of encouragement, but Lance still wasn’t listening. “Shiro,” he mumbled. Lifting his hand out of Shiro’s, Lance feebly waved it around until it landed awkwardly on what was probably the older paladin’s face. “Jus…shuu ‘p. S’ok…”     

Shiro let out a fractured laugh. “Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to say that?” he asked.

_You already did – like a million times_ , Lance wanted to say, but he was too tired. Nothing really hurt all that much anymore, but with the relief came an inexplicable tiredness. If only he could just slip away, back to that place where nothing could hurt him.

And before Lance knew it, he was already gone.

 

* * *

 

Hunk felt sick to his stomach.

As if sensing that some kind of fight was taking place, Lance let out a terrible noise from his spot on the medical table. All arguments were instantly silenced, and everyone was quick to jump to Lance’s assistance.

Everyone except Hunk.

The minute Hunk had walked into the room to see Lance in such a condition, he had broken out in a cold sweat and found it hard to swallow. Now, listening to the sound of his friend in distress – the worst noise any person could hear – he was next to useless. Hunk’s limbs were frozen, as if he had been dipped in a pool of ice.  

Here he was, standing and watching as Shiro, Allura, and Keith tried to hold Lance down while Coran got out a syringe. His _best friend_ was laying there in agony and he couldn’t do anything – couldn’t do a damn thing!

“What do we do?” Pidge asked, panicking. She hovered around the table, fingers moving subconsciously as if wishing she could fix Lance using an omni-tool and some of her mechanical magic. Standing here, watching his pale friend shake and gasp as the drug took effect, Hunk didn’t think it would be that easy.

“You need to leave!” Shiro shouted, trying to keep Lance’s injured shoulder secure so he wouldn’t hurt himself. “The only thing you can do right now is get in the way.”

Hunk was hurt by the black paladin’s statement, however, he couldn’t blame him. He was just a dumbstruck, overly-large sack of uselessness in this room.

Predictably, Keith once again took offence to Shiro’s statement, however Allura had had enough of his arrogance. Before the red paladin could get out more than two words, the princess stood to her full height and roared “OUT!”

Keith froze, and Hunk could practically see the wheels turning as he contemplated his next move. Something in Allura’s eyes must have gotten through to him though, because he simply grit his teeth and swung around, heading for the door. Pidge followed after him reluctantly, shooting longing glances at her injured friend before she made is past the threshold.

“You too, Hunk,” Allura said, this time much more softly. “Please.” The righteous anger in her eyes had been replaced with something unbearably worried. No one, especially not one of his close friends, should ever possess an expression like that.

Shocked out of his paralysis, Hunk swallowed, nodded jerkily, and then allowed himself one last glance toward his stricken comrade before exiting. He could hear Shiro speaking soft words of encouragement to Lance as he left.

Standing alone in the hall, Hunk felt the wave of sickness that he had been holding back come crashing down on him. Knees weak, he only just made it to the nearest restroom before throwing up in the toilet. Hunk heaved for some time after everything had left his stomach. It was an awful feeling, but he knew that it wasn’t even a tenth of what Lance had to be experiencing.

Hunk wasn’t sure how long he was leaning against the wall, staring at the floor when he heard Pidge call his name. Standing up shakily, Hunk staggered over to the door and found the green paladin waiting for him in the hall.

“Are you ok?” she asked. Funny, Hunk could remember asking her the same question just fifteen minutes ago, before this entire situation had escalated so horrifically.

He nodded. “I’ll be alright,” he said, which was the truth. It wasn’t exactly himself he was concerned about right now.

Pidge gave Hunk a wobbly smile. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s wait in the east lounge. I…don’t really know how long this is gunna take.”

Together they made their way down the hall, in a much more solemn mood then they had coming down this walkway before. Neither of them spoke until they reached the lounge, and, to Hunk’s surprise, they found Keith already there. With the red paladin’s new attitude, Hunk had been expecting him to be pouting in a room somewhere, not pacing back and forth like a concerned family member in a hospital.    

Hunk and Pidge sat down while Keith continued to pace in a small line, wearing down the floor. After what felt like hours – but what was probably only about 45 minutes – Allura walked into the lounge looking years older and totally worn out.  

“He’s finally in a pod,” she said before anyone had the opportunity to ask. “We had a really bad situation at first, however I think it’s worked out.”

“Will he be ok?” Hunk blurted. He was so tired of standing around waiting to know the answer to that question.

“He’ll live,” said Allura solemnly – and wasn’t that just the most satisfying answer ever? “However, you have to understand that the healing pods are not magic. They serve to amplify a body’s natural ability to repair itself, but some injuries do not heal so easily. Lance will most likely need some physical therapy for his shoulder, and, well….” She paused for a moment, looking like she was questioning whether or not to continue. “We’ll just have to see how well it goes.”

Hunk looked down, not knowing what to say. It would have been so much easier if he was simply watching a soap opera on TV, but this was real, and not only that, this was _Lance_ – his best friend. What _could_ he say?  

“Wait,” Allura said, and Hunk looked up to see her blocking Keith, keeping him from leaving. “We need to talk first.”

“What’s there to talk about?” he said sourly. “Are you still going to keep me from seeing him, even now?” He went to push past her, but Allura grabbed his arm.

“No, you’ve not leaving,” she hissed, and pushed him back until he was standing next to Hunk and Pidge. Keith grit his teeth and jerked his arm out of her grip, but didn’t try forcing himself past her again.

Allura stepped back. “The little amount of trust you share in your team is, quite frankly, shocking.” She turned her eyes to stare at each one of them in turn. “Something has happened to this team,” she said, “something that is hindering your ability to function as a unit. Whether it has to do with the damaged wormhole or something else, I don’t know. However, until you figure out what went wrong inside yourselves and fix it – you especially Keith – I can no longer allow you to form Voltron.”

Hunk gasped. What did she just say?

“You can’t do that!” Keith burst out. He looked so furious that Hunk took a step away from him. “We’re fighting a war! You can’t just stop us from-”

“I can,” Allura stated, “and I will. There’s no point in any of us fighting if this inability to trust each other gets everyone killed.”

Keith looked as if he wanted to hit Allura, but the princess refused to back down under his ferocity. She glared back, tall and proud and all the mighty princess Hunk knew her to be. Keith could be as stubborn as he wanted, but both of them knew who was going to win this argument. 

In the end, Keith stormed toward the door, brushing past Shiro as he left and leaving them with a deep feeling of unease. Just like Allura, the eldest paladin looked tired, except his torn and bloody outfit made it seem he had just survived a prison camp.

“You should be in a healing pod as well,” Allura said, looking Shiro up and down. Hunk had the feeling that this was the first time anyone had even glanced at his injures since the black paladin had returned with Lance.

Shiro nodded. “I’ll go in a second,” he said tiredly.

Allura nodded and walked out, giving him a small smile as she left.

Shiro let out a long, defeated sigh. “I’m sorry about that,” he said to the remaining members of the team. “In our rush to set Lance’s shoulder, we weren’t keeping a very good watch on his anesthetic levels. He wasn’t supposed to wake up. I should have- I mean…” He signed again. “I never should have let any of this happen.”

“Hey man,” Hunk said, jumping forward. “This isn’t your fault!”

“Yeah,” Pidge piped in. “You couldn’t have done anything to stop this from happening! We were lucky just to be able to find him!”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, staring longingly at his hands. “If only I had done things differently, maybe the accident with the wormhole wouldn’t have happened. Allura getting taken in the first place was-”       

“Stop!” yelled Pidge suddenly, grabbing Shiro’s arm. “What do you mean ‘if only?’ This isn’t my Shiro! The Shiro I know would be doing everything in his power to help us fix this situation, not dwelling on what ‘could have been.’ Not all of us have the luxury of blaming ourselves in order to feel better.”

And with that, Pidge stormed out of the room, leaving the two boys staring after her.      

“Since when did Pidge turn into Allura?” Shiro asked, but Hunk could see a tiny smile lifting one corner of his mouth. “Come on, I know you’re probably wanting to go check up on Lance right about now.”

Hunk nodded and followed Shiro out of the room. He would be lying if he said Pidge hadn’t made him feel a tiny bit better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it looks like the girls have been really sharpening their telling off skills tonight. Maybe the boys will learn something ;)
> 
> Poor Hunk! He hasn't even done anything wrong, and people are still mad :(
> 
> Merry Chris- er, well, looks like I missed Christmas (sorry about that). Happy New Year? Well, whatever it is, I hope you had a wonderful day :)


	8. Chapter 8

Lance was alone when he woke up.

At least, he thought he was alone. Everything was pitch dark and his hearing felt slightly muted. Even the pain in his shoulder felt as if it had been toned down, but he was uncomfortably hot under his skin.

“…’lo?” Lance coughed, instantly regretting speaking aloud when it felt like the action might tear his throat open. Ok, it looked like he would have to figure out where he was the old-fashioned way.

He moved his hand to the side, fumbling around on the bed until he felt a smooth surface under his fingers. Placing his palm up against what was probably a wall, Lance was able to push himself into a sitting position.

Everything felt wrong. Patches of skin on his back, chest, and neck were stretched tight and burned when he moved, and his ribs ached in protest every time he breathed in. The worst of them all, though, was probably his shoulder. It was held in a sling and throbbed whenever he tried to adjust it or lift his arm. Lance just wished that he could _see_ in order to tell how bad it was. An exploration of himself revealed a soft, lose-fitting set of clothes and bandages covering most of his exposed skin, however there was nothing covering his eyes. Where were the bloody lights in this place?

A little voice in the back of Lance’s mind told him that there was something he needed to remember, but he ignored it. A dark, desolate fog surrounded those memories, and Lance knew he wasn’t ready to delve into them yet. Instead, he opted to pretend they didn’t exist, choosing ignorance over facing whatever it was he couldn’t remember.

 _It’s ok,_ he tried reassuring himself. _Everything’s fine. I just need to figure out where I am, and then I can…I can…_ Lance hadn’t the slightest idea what he was going to do then, but he decided to take things one step at a time.

And the first step was, well, _taking_ a step, hopefully in the right direction.

Placing his bare feet firmly on the cool floor, Lance tried to stand up. This turned out to be a very bad idea when a wave of dizziness crashed into him and he staggered. Lance reached out for the floor as he fell, filching in anticipation of the pain he knew was coming, but then…

_Lance was inside the blue lion, screaming as he felt her pulse with negative energy. In that moment he could feel her pain, feel the vileness of the Galra’s magic as if twisted its way inside her. He could feel her disgust as the energy – the same energy that had once been used for good – forced her to change into something she did not want to be._

_It was eating her alive, destroying who she was. She couldn’t allow that. It would not make her do it – it would not take her paladin away from her!_

_There was a push, and Lance lost the connection with his lion. But before he had time to morn her absence, he was falling, tumbling around and around, unable to regain control. He didn’t even have time to panic before there was a horrible flash of purple light…_

“…ance! Lance! Can you hear me? Come on man, say something!”

Lance was on the ground, being held painfully upright by someone gripping his shoulders. He shoved them away, backing up until he was pressed up against what was probably the bed he had previously been sleeping on. There was an incessant ringing in his ears, and his skull throbbed with the frantic beating of his heart. Lance held his head in his hand, desperately willing the pain to go away.

“Lance? Oh god. Lance, hey…”

“What’s going on?” someone new asked, alarmed. “Is Lance alright? Hunk, what happened?”

“I don’t know!” said the first person. “I was only gone for a minute, but when I came back he was on the floor! He’s not- he can’t…”

“Move out of the way.”

Lance jerked when he felt someone touch his right arm, but the person didn’t let go. “Lance, it’s me, Shiro. You crashed-landed on a planet and injured yourself, but you’re back in the castle now. Lance, can you understand me?”

Lance tried to control his rapid breathing and the pain inside his skull. He didn’t understand. Everything was so loud- h-he couldn’t remember -  

“Lance.” Shiro said again, tightening his grip. “Lance, I need you to tell me if you’re alright. I can’t help you until you do that, ok? Lance?”

Lance took in a deep breath, feeling his ribs ache in protest. He gave a shaky nod. “Ok,” he said, his voice sounding cracked and small. “I-I-I’m ok.”

And he knew it was true – now it was, at least. He was safe inside the castle, just as the person – which he now realized to be Shiro – had said. The stiffness in his muscles, the headache, and the dizziness were all classic symptoms of a prolonged stay in the healing pods.

But if that were true, then why couldn’t he stop shaking? Why was it so _dark_? Before he even had a chance of calming down, panic was once again raising up in Lance’s throat.

This couldn’t be happening. He had to fix this – had to find the blue lion. She could help him, couldn’t she? She could tell him what was going on. But he didn’t know where she was. He had to find her! Had to…had to…

“Lance!”

Two strong hands were holding the sides of his head, grounding him back to reality. Shiro was speaking in a steady, unwavering voice.

“Lance, listen to me. You’re in shock. You need to take a deep breath, ok? Can you do that for me? Lance?”

Lance was shaking so hard he wasn’t sure he could, but Shiro was there, and he knew he needed to try.

“That’s it, nice and easy. You’re doing fine. You hear me man? You’re doing great.”

Lance felt incredibly silly, sitting here with Shiro talking to him like he was some little kid. But a little kid was exactly what he felt like, and Shiro’s voice seemed to be the only thing holding him together.

“Lance?” Shiro said.

“Shiro, I can’t…”

Lance choked on the words, his Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively as he swallowed past the sand in his throat. He knew he was crying, desperate tears sliding down his face, but couldn’t find the strength to care.

“Hey, buddy. You ok?” Shiro asked. There was suppressed uneasiness in his voice.

The hands supporting the sides of his head tightened. It hurt, but Lance didn’t want them to leave. Right now they were the only things standing between him and the overwhelming void.

“…Lance?”

“I can’t see,” he gasped.

_I can’t see I can’t see I can’t see I can’t see._

* * *

 

Allura turned away from the door to the recovery room, not wanting to look any longer.

When Hunk had come stumbling into the control room claiming Lance was awake, Allura couldn’t think about anything else than to see him. Worrying about the blue paladin for so long had been emotionally, and even physically, exhausting, and she wanted nothing more than to have some relief from that dark cloud hanging over her and the rest of the team. The absence of Lance’s highly-contagious attitude had left a hole that they hadn’t realized needed to be filled until he was gone.

But now, having walked in to see Lance sitting on the floor, her stomach froze and the joy she felt at hearing he had woken up dissipated. The blue member of their team was hunched into himself, barely containing his sobs as Shiro held onto him and murmured words of comfort. The scene was so different from the injured but cheerfully-recovering Lance she had expected, and it filled her up with an emotion she had nearly forgotten about.

Guilt.

This was all her fault.

As much as she wanted to know if Lance was alright, she couldn’t bear to look at him. She should have known everything couldn’t be fixed that easily. That her _screw-up_ wouldn’t have such dramatic effects on everyone around her. How could she face him now, knowing that all the pain that he had suffered and the scars he had gained over the last week were all because of her foolishness?

“Is it true?”

Allura looked up. Pidge, Hunk, and Coran were looking at her anxiously, as if waiting for her assessment of the situation.

The expectant expression on their faces only made her feel worse. Didn’t they know whose _fault_ this was?

“Is it true?” Pidge asked again. “Can he really not…ya know…”

She trailed off, her eyes wandering until they fell on the window to the recovery room and the two figures inside.

Allura shook her head, taking a deep, steadying breath. She would not cry. Lance and the others needed her to be strong.

She could do that much for them, at least.

“I don’t think so,” she said somberly. “The burns on his eyes appeared to be mostly healed when we checked them this morning, but he can’t see anything at the moment. We can do a full assessment of his light perception once he’s…calmed down…a little bit.”

All three of them looked away from her, none of them knowing what to say and all of them positively oozing an air of misery.

“I…need to go,” Hunk said suddenly, holding a hand over his mouth.

“My quiznak, are you alright?” Coran asked. Hunk looked positively green, but the large paladin didn’t replay as he rushed down the hall and out of sight.

“Should someone go after him?” Allura asked, worried. It wasn’t unusual for Hunk to get sick, but not when he was standing on solid ground.

Pidge shook her head. “He’s been having…trouble keeping things down since yesterday. I think it might just be stress.”

Allura nodded in understanding. Everyone had a different way of dealing with anxiety and worry, so she supposed it wasn’t out of the question for Hunk’s stomach to be affected.

“Um, I’ve been meaning to ask something,” spoke Pidge after a few seconds of silence. “What is that thing?”

She pointed off to her left and everyone turned to look. Sitting next to the door was the same silver and brown monkey-cat they had seen on the blue helmet’s hologram. It was staring at Allura expectantly, however she couldn’t remember having seen it come from anywhere. Had it been standing there the whole time and she hadn’t noticed?

“Oh,” she said, her mind strangely blank. Hadn’t that monkey…thing been with Shiro after he arrived with Lance? She had been so single-mindedly focused on their injured friend at the time that its presence hadn’t even occurred to her.

“Yes,” said Coran, kneeling down and putting a thoughtful hand on his chin. “I was wondering why our little alien friend was here and not back on the planet we found him from.”

“Do you know what it is?” asked Pidge.

“Well not exactly,” he replied, “though I do have my suspicions…”

While Coran was curiously studying it, the little animal seemed to take a liking to the Altaian’s mustache. It hopped over, pulling at each side as if wondering how the hairs attached to his face, and whether or not it could successfully remove them.

“I think it likes you,” Allura said, the tiniest of smiles tugging at the corner of her mouth. 

“Likes you,” the little monkey repeated, jumping up to Coran’s head where it proceeded to pull at his hair. The little alien seemed be amazed at the vibrantly orange color.

“Well I do believe it does – ah!” Coran’s admiration was cut off by a wince when the monkey-cat grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked.

“Yes, very delightful,” he said, eyes watering.

The two girls giggled and the little animal grinned, holding the tuft of hair like a prize in its long-fingered hand.

“So, what’s going to happen now?” Pidge asked a moment later, when their laughing had subsided.

“Well,” said Allura, “we’re going to have to go back to the planet and retrieve the blue lion. It’s still there, since Lance was in no shape to piolet it and Shiro…had other things to think about.”

The little bit of happiness vanished as she remembered the situation they were in. None of them had time to be standing in hallways, laughing as one of their friends was suffering. She straightened up, proud and reserved once again.

“We should get going,” she said. “Who knows what might happen to the blue lion while we’re dawdling.”

“Right you are!” said Coran, spinning on his heel and marching toward the control room with the little alien still sitting on his head. “I’ll set up the planet’s coordinates! And stop pulling on my hair, you blasted little mongrel!”

Pidge looked up at Allura. “You should go with him,” she said. “You’re the only one who can open up the wormholes.”

Allura knew this very well, but she hesitated. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

Pidge shrugged. “I don’t think there’s much I can do around here. I’m not exactly the most…comforting person. I think I’ll go find Keith. He could use a good kick in the pants, if you ask me.”

“Alright,” she said, smiling at the younger girl. “But don’t be too harsh with him. We’ve all had a hard time of it recently.”

“I won’t.”

Pidge took off in the opposite direction that Coran had gone, leaving Allura standing alone in the hallway. She took one last glance at the occupance inside the recovery room before turning away, a steeling inside her bones.

She _would_ get them out of this mess, she told herself. She could beat herself up about everything once Lance was fully recovered and piloting his lion once again.

That is, if he ever did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Shiro and now Allura. When will the self-blaming stop?? D:
> 
> Evidently when I said I would have the next chapter out soon, I meant *once I get my crap together and finish moving*, or *in another two months*. I did move into a new apartment though which was pretty stressful, especially while trying to keep up with homework (which can also be kinda hard when your internet isn’t hooked up yet). 
> 
> I think I watched the second season of Voltron about four times (actually, I’m watching it as a write this). Now I will no longer be able to live until the next one comes out. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

“Lance.”

Lance lifted his head at the sound of his name, surprised. He had been so deep in thought that he hadn’t heard the door to the recovery room open.

He couldn’t see the person, of course. He didn’t know why he had expected to.

“Hey Allura,” he said, voice still rough and sore. He kept his face towards her for a few moments, before realizing that his eyes must look strange. He let his head fall back down to where he had been fumbling with his hands, trying to get the one in the sling to move.

Allura took a few tentative steps forward. “How are…I mean, are you…?”

 “I’m feeling fine, now that your beautiful face to comfort me,” he said, smiling at her.

Allura let out a sigh, pretending to be exasperated but really just extremely relieved. She walked over to the bed and sat down next to him.

“Is the return of your immature flirting a sign that you’re feeling better?” she asked.

“I guess so” he said, still smiling. But the confidence couldn’t last, and they both knew it. In the end he simply gave a one-sided shrug. Honestly, he wasn’t really sure how he felt. The panic that he had experienced only half a day before was nearly gone, replaced by a cold, empty sensation in his chest. He didn’t want to think about what had happened. He didn’t think he could at the moment, afraid that diving into those memories might shatter the calm that had fallen over him.

“We’ve reached the planet that you crashed on,” she said after a moment.

Lance knew this, of course, but he didn’t say anything. It was kind of hard not to notice warping through a wormhole, especially since you had to be helped into a strapped seat by the person you’ve idolized since forever.

 “From what Shiro told us,” she continued slowly, “the blue lion is unresponsive. Right now, its protective shields aren’t up, along with some of its other defensive procedures. Its doors have been sealed shut, though, which makes it nearly impossible for enemies to penetrate. Unfortunately, that also means _we_ can’t penetrate it.”

Lance took the news about his lion with no response, as if he were no longer emotionally connected to it. It felt like he wasn’t, anyway.

That fact scared him a little bit.

“We can bring the lion back onto the ship, but as for its repair…” She signed. “Honestly, I’m not sure how we’re going to fix this.”

Lance got the feeling she wasn’t just talking about Blue. The left leg of Voltron wasn’t the only thing on this ship that needed to be fixed, and just like the Blue lion, neither of them knew the first place to start.

 Not knowing how to respond, his attention shifted back to his hand.

Allura seemed to get the sense of what he was feeling, because she fell into a glum silence. If it had been a few weeks ago, Lance would have done everything in this power to confront her. The very thought of Allura in any form of discomfort was an unbearable alternative.

But now, Lance couldn’t find the energy. It seemed that all his empathy had dried up along with his feelings of anxiety.

“I’m sorry,” Allura whispered suddenly, almost too quietly for him to catch.

Lance furrowed his brows. “For what?” he croaked.

She shifted next to him, and Lance could just picture the brown-skinned alien to be sinking into herself.

“This is all my fault,” she said in a small voice.

Allura sniffed, and Lance jerked upright as he suddenly realized that she was crying.

“Woah woah! Wait a second, princess- I mean, you didn’t…” he trailed off, not sure what to say. Did anyone know whose fault this entire mess was? Did it really even _matter_?

“Hey, come on!” he said, scratching his chin and trying to cover up his desperation with a raspy laugh. “Look! I’ll be ok. Just a few more sleepy times in the pods, and I’ll be hoppin’ all over the walls, just like normal! So… So please don’t be sad, ok? ...Princess?”

Allura reached out and grabbed his right hand in both of hers, making him jump. “You don’t have to pretend,” she said. Lance could still tell that she was crying, but her voice was a lot stronger than before. “It’s alright Lance. I don’t need you to be strong for me. I’m…I’m the one who screwed things up. I should be the one who’s comforting _you_ , not the other way around. I’ve been a terrible guide for this team thus far, and you paid the price because of my failure. I swear I’m going to make it up to you – to you, to the team, and to every single person out there depending on Voltron to save them. But until that time, you don’t need to keep acting like everything is alright. Can you not pretend for a moment? Can you…do that for me?”

Lance didn’t say anything, struck dumb by her words. He swallowed, at a loss for how to respond. _Pretend_? Was this pretending? Wasn’t this…just him?

Maybe Lance didn’t know who that person was anymore.

“…Lance?”

He jerked. Allura had placed a hand on the side of his face. She turned it toward her, and Lance felt a startlingly deep feeling of loss knowing that he couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Lance?” she asked again. “Are you really ok?”

“Isn’t that just the question of the day,” he croaked. His voice sounded pitiful, even to himself. He tried laughing it off again, but Allura didn’t say anything. It seemed the princess wasn’t going to be distracted by his poor attempts at normalcy. “Yeah, I’ll ah…have to get back to you on that one, princess.”

Allura didn’t say anything. Lance could just picture her scrutinizing his face, and the uncomfortable feeling got to him. He lowered his head, fumbling with his fingers, attempting once again to force his left ones to move. He had managed to move most of them individually, but was unable to clench his hand into a fist.

The action was only a distraction really. Eventually Allura was done waiting for him to give an answer and gently placed her hands over his, stilling them.

“No one expects you to spring right back into things. We’re going to figure this out, ok? About the blue lion, and about Voltron.”

When he still didn’t answer, Allura gave a quiet sigh and got to her feet. “I need to go see how things are going, but I’ll send someone to be with you. Does that sound alright?”

He shrugged again. It wasn’t like he could stop her, even if he would rather have been left on his own to sulk.

Lance could hear the princess hesitating, as if there was more she wanted to say. But in the end she opted to leave without comment. The quiet swish of the door as she left gave Lance a bitter feeling in his mouth.

_We’re going to figure this out, ok? About the blue lion, and about Voltron._

_Yeah,_ he thought bitterly, _she should have just come out and said “we’ll figure out your replacement.”_

It wasn’t fair, that all this had to happen to him. Lance felt his breath hitch. He curled his knees up to his chest, rocking back and forth as much as his damaged skin would let him.

It wasn’t fair that this freak accident had to happen to him. It wasn’t fair that he had his _sight_ of all things taken away, the only thing he really knew how to use. And it wasn’t fair that his one chance of being someone great – of _doing_ something great – had to be ripped from him, just like that.

He had been the leg of _Voltron,_ for crying out loud. And now what was he? A talentless, miserable ball of uselessness whose abilities included cracking jokes at inappropriate times and always needing his friends to rescue him. Yeah, that would definitely go well on his inter-galactic space resume.

Lance wanted to cry, but it felt as if his tears were all dried up. Maybe it would be better for everyone if he simply never come out of this room.   

_Is this really what humans do?_

Lance jerked upright so fast it nearly gave him whiplash. “What the -” he exclaimed, almost falling off the bed. “Who-?”

_Is this really  what humans do?_ The voice repeated.

Lance blinked a few times. “I, ah…what?” Was he going crazy, or was there a someone talking to him in his head?

_Do you humans feel always feel pity for yourselves? I must admit, I had expected better – even from you, little Orrni._

“I don’t know…wait, was that an insult? And I wasn’t _pitying_ myself!”

_Really?_

Lance had a feeling that the voice was mocking him. He balled his fists – well, one fist, at least. “I’m not! How do you know what I'm feeling? In fact, I’m totally fine with how I am! Everything is _fine._ ” Lance knew he was lying in his attempt to prove the voice wrong. His exclamation sounded sad, even to himself.

_Oh? Then have you come to terms with your fate? Are you satisfied with how things are now? You believe yourself to be so weak that your team can go on without you as if nothing has changed?_

“No! I mean- well I…” he stopped himself. A small part of Lance’s brain wanted to ask the more relevant questions, such as how the strange, bodiless voice was able to talk to him in the first place, and why it knew so much about him. However, none of those really seemed all that important at the moment.

_That's too bad. I don’t require a warrior who has given up, injured or not. If you are truly that broken, I suppose I will have to look elsewhere._

Lance wasn’t sure how, but he could sense the presence begin to retreat from him. He could feel it leaving, almost as potent as listening to someone walk out of a room.

His heart leapt into his throat. He didn’t want the voice to leave. Somehow, deep down, he knew that if they left, then everything really would be over for him.

“Wait!” he yelled, reaching forward into nothing.

The presence stopped, listening.

 “I’m not so sure about being broken, but…” Lance swallowed. “…I hadn’t given up. Not yet, at least.”

It turned back toward him. Lance could almost see eyes glowing in the darkness, inspecting him, a smug smile filled with lots of teeth. He got the feeling that they had been waiting for him to say those very words.

_Well then, why don’t you prove it to me?_

“…Prove it?” 

_Yes! You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? Get up! Show me what you’re really made of!_

Lance had no idea what that was going to prove, but he found the voice to be fairly persuasive. Swallowing down his fear, he pushed himself off the bed with his one good arm, gritting his teeth against the expected pull of his burned skin. At first he didn’t think his legs were going to support him, but after several long, painful seconds, he managed to stand without any support from the bed.

_Good, good._ It said, almost sounding excited. _Now walk forward._

Lance had no idea why he was listening to this strange voice or why he was following its directions, but he supposed it was too late to stop now.

Lance took a step forward, almost falling over when the world around him spun and his legs threatened to collapse underneath him. It was much harder to balance without seeing anything, especially since he hadn’t been able to walk by himself for some time.

He kept going, each foot almost falling after the last until he collapsed against the far wall, breathing tightly through his teeth.

“Alright, I did it,” Lance said, jaw clenched painfully. He was out of breath and sweat was starting for form on his brow. “Have I passed your stupid test yet?”

_Oh no, little Orrni._ It said, purring _. It seems we are only getting started._

“Fine,” he growled, slapping his hand inelegantly against the wall until he found the switch for the door. It swished open a foot from his nose, letting in a breeze of cool air.

Lance felt like he had just opened a door to a great and terrifying unknown.

“Fine,” he said again, this time with more ground beneath his voice.

Lance then took a deep breath and stepped forward, out into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, a full chapter of just Lance. I wonder who that strange voice is...( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉)
> 
> This chapter seems too late for me to be sorry, but I'll say it anyway. It's been a long summer, but I've finally found some time to write again now that I'm on break. 
> 
> Season 3 is finally out! (even though it's really short), so now I have something to watch to death until the next season. Oh, my beautiful babies... (ಥ﹏ಥ)
> 
> See you next time!

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so here starts my super-happy-fun-time adventure with Lance and all of his glory at the center. Hopefully it won’t be too angsty, though I will warn you I am not a big fan of fluff, so you probably won’t be seeing very much of that. My goal for this fic is to explore the relationships between the characters and their lions, for both team-building and character-building purposes.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer - I don't own Voltron, 'nuf said.


End file.
